By Cheryl Carver, LPN, WCC, CWCA, DAPWCA, FACCWS

My approach to wound care education with patients, providers, and nursing staff the last 20+ years has always been to make learning fun while emphasizing that wounds are a serious topic. My strong passion drives me to motivate anyone and everyone who wants to learn. If they don’t want to learn, then I’ll figure out the best way to motivate them! Everyone learns differently; however, hands-on training with added fun usually wins. Education should be ongoing and engaging, and it should create fun ways to experience more of those “aha” moments. We want to impact that long-term memory storage! Every care setting has variances, but my blog will provide you with some ideas that you can alter to fit your needs.

By Girisha Maheshwari, Pavan Mujawdiya, and Shivani Gupta

Chronic wounds and their management pose a serious challenge to clinicians worldwide and are one of the major public health challenges faced by developing countries. Worldwide, over 40 million people develop chronic wounds, which adversely affects their quality of life. However, epidemiological studies concerning chronic wounds and their management are limited, especially in developing countries. According to the largest community-based epidemiological study on wounds in India by Gupta et al., the estimated prevalence of chronic and acute wounds is 4.48/1000 and 10.5/1000 in India. This study is more than a decade old, and there is no recent data available in the public domain. The lack of organized wound data makes it difficult to formulate new therapeutic strategies, create effective health care policies, or offer efficacious treatment options. Complex wounds take time to heal, and if they are not identified at the earliest stage, the treatment process may be complicated.

Sharp debridement is by far the fastest way to remove non-viable tissue from a wound bed. This modality must be performed by a licensed skilled practitioner using sharp instruments or tools to remove unhealthy tissue. It is reimbursed by most payers when documentation and medical necessity support its use. There are times when sharp debridement is contraindicated, however. This blog reviews the contraindications and alternatives to sharp debridement.

Complex and hard-to-heal chronic wounds impact millions of people globally. In the United States, care for these types of wounds exceeds $25 billion annually. Wound healing naturally progresses through the overlapping phases of hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. With chronic and complex wounds, the natural biological healing process stalls in the inflammatory phase, thereby preventing both the proliferative phase and further advancement toward wound closure.